The Etymology of Shit

Sometimes you have to let yourself get lost up shit's creek.

Hello, my name is Bowie (aka Failure) and I am a failure. Welcome to this support group for humans on planet Earth. I'm happy to be here with you. Please hold your questions until the end. Thank you.

For the last decade, I have been trying to understand failure. I've wanted to slice into its juicy flesh and hold its core in my hand, sticky and wet, before pulling out the seeds with my teeth and spitting them on the floor. I've wanted to swim in a sea of shame and rejection and humiliation and the stink of failed dreams if only to see how bad it could get, how much I could take before the stench of my own shit came to be too much.

While we're on the topic of shit, I'd like to begin with a recent story about failure and my own, that is, shit. Please step into my rowboat and grab an oar as we float down the stinky river of my disappointment and dashed expectations. I promise it will be fun and you will happily adjust to the stench.

This year is the first year of my life where I haven't been in my hometown—ye old Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—for the holidays. Instead, after traveling around the United States for the past six months, I decided to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years secluded on a homestead in Joshua Tree to appease the unending longings of the neglected hermit that lives in the attic of my mind—the goal being to finally finish a project that has been stalking me like a ghost (I've named her Nancy) that honestly needs to give it a fucking rest already and go have a drink out back for a while.

I was a bit concerned about my decision to fully embrace solitude during the holidays if I'm honest. Kind of similar to when I first embarked on writing the book I had come to the homestead to finish. I said to a friend shortly after I turned twenty-three, more than a decade ago when I first began the book, "I'm afraid if I keep writing, I won't be able to stop." I felt like a leaky faucet that might suddenly burst and then drown if I continued. It turns out, I have not been able to stop writing no matter how hard I have tried and I have miraculously not drowned yet, though I have come close. My self-control in this area has turned out to be a total failure.

How does this relate to me being completely isolated—outside of the company of my dog and cat and the howling coyotes that occasionally run across my front-desert-lawn—for a solid month before I was to receive the company of a friend during Christmas? It turns out I LOVE the hermit life, like LOOOOOVE, feel energized by it. It's given me a new lease on life and unexpected powers as though I'm suddenly Alex Mack, to the point that I am now concerned that my ability to socialize properly again may be forever stunted, particularly after the last two years of being largely isolated during quarantine and lockdown with my most regular communication being in the form of slowly blinking at my cat and rubbing the soft velvet of my dog's ears between my thumb and pointer finger and singing in an obnoxious falsetto, "How are you reeeeaaalll?"

This is all to say, the intentional hermit life in a faraway land from my birthplace made me connect with what feels like personal secret powers. I've been more organized juggling my various paid work, I crossed the finish line (for now) for a project I'd been working on ever since I first feared I would not be able to stop writing, I began imagining the shape and structure of my next book, and I started running regularly again, getting close to the pace I was running ten years ago despite the sandy terrain and windy, moody environment of the high desert during the winter. In short, I felt in control. A success! Checking things off my to-do list and dusting off my shoulder with a sparkle in my eye. And then I let a good, old friend into the sanctity of my perfectly controlled, shit-free hermit-monk bubble. Shit really hit the fan.

If you'd like to stop reading now and just get to the point of this post, here is an equation for you:

Shit hit the fan + shit the bed + a real shit storm + explore these shitty sayings - my own shit = failure = chaos = lack of control = sublime beauty

For those who'd like to continue reading: